“Narrow-mindedness” was just one of the reason that drove the members of the recently formed Chest Pains to leave their hometowns and congregate in Leeds.
The four members came together via the thriving community, based out at CHUNK, the former warehouse turned not-for-profit arts space.
After regularly putting on and playing shows in the space, they’ve put their first material on tape, in the form of two new tracks, the first of which ‘Petrified’ you can listen to below.
It was recorded with Tom Orrell at Leeds’ The Nave studio, and singer and guitarist Sammy Robinson has this to say about it:
“My inspirations lie within day-to-day social encounters that spark an emotion within me, whether that’s anger or anxiety. ‘Petrified’ is about a long-distance relationship whilst ‘Shame’ refers to the narrow-minded people who live in my home town, the town itself and how it’s basically frozen in time.”
They’re playing a bunch of shows coming up, including:
Wakefield, Crux – 24 June Hull, New Adelphi – 25 London, Birthdays – 27 Manchester, The Peer Hat – 28 Leeds, Brudenell Social Club (single launch) – 29
For last night’s (31 May)Loud And Quiet Radio show on ResonanceFM, we thought we’d curtail the babble a bit and stick what people are probably more interested in – the new music. We did so well we even had time to play a couple of old tunes from a time when people would exchange money for music.
Let’s not spoil the surprise here, but one of them was definitely bought and the other… maybe not so much. They BOTH should have been, though.
Take a listen below. The suspense must be killing you.
And the band we clumsily avoid announcing are called Shit Girlfriend, by the way.
We played:
The I.L.Ys – Wash My Hands Shortly Sheer Mag – Just Can’t Get Enough Josin – Feral Thing XX Teens – The Way We Were Yaeji – Feel it Out Shit Girlfriend – I Don’t Wanna Die Amerie – 1 Thing Richard Dawson – Ogre Meatraffle – Brother Mush – Alternative Facts
The music video, it’s a fine art isn’t it? Something to supplement a piece of music or elevate it? Distract or compliment?
Vessels come at the clip they’ve created for their thumping latest track ‘Radiart’ from a slightly different angle.
At a point where some artists’ music videos have plots to rival Line Of Duty Vessels’ new one begins like an episode of The Bill – or some kind of take on Radiohead‘s engrossing ‘Just’ – before it flips itself on its head.
The video is directed by Justin and James Lockey, both members of Mogwai/Slowdive affiliated project, Minor Victories, under their Hand Held Cine Club moniker.
‘Radiart’ was the first new track Vessels have shared from a new album coming out later this year, the follow-up to 2015’s ‘Dilate’.
If you, like us, were just the other day thinking ‘XX Teens were fun. What are those guys up to these days?’, well, we’ve got some of the answer.
TECHNOLOGY + TEAMWORK is a recent collaboration between Anthony Silvester from the band and Sarah Jones.
You may know Jones as the drummer from Hot Chip and many other projects, but last year she released a handful of great tracks as Pillow Person. You can read one of her first interviews about it here.
Silvester’s old band were last seen in 2008 after the release of their long-awaited debut album on Mute – ‘Welcome To Goon Island’. A sloppy/tight mix of LCD cowbell and the Mark E Smith speak-sing that became XX Teens’ thing in 2004, the only thing that was wrong with ‘Goon Island’ was how long it took get down onto tape. XX Teens bothered themselves more with squeezing onto small pub stages (all 100 of them) and playing in white shirts and black trousers and sunglasses, like office temps giving it a go. Naturally, it was great.
TECHNOLOGY + TEAMWORK have already sneaked out a couple of tracks, but this new one, ‘K+B’, kicks off work for a debut EP, coming later this year. It will be released via the duo’s own label, NFNF (it stands for Never Forgive Never Forget), on July 21, produced by Felix Martin from Hot Chip.
Charlotte Church is on the cover. That’s because her Pop Dungeon show is one of the most exciting and fun shows we’ve been to all year. In it, she covers a vast array of chart classics like Amerie’s ‘1 Thing’ and ‘I Believe I Can Fly’ to big tunes by Rage Against The Machine, Nirvana, Can and Black Sabbath.
And so, this month’s accompanying playlist starts with a couple of tracks she covered in her set in Birmingham last month.
Also inside Issue 86, we have feature interviews with Gotts Street Park, Richard Dawson, LICE, Lifestyle, Young MA, and The Only Ones’ Peter Perrett. Thurston Moore is is our Sweet 16, and Aldous Harding takes our Getting To Know You questionnaire.
The following playlist is a mix of artists who’re covered in the magazine, plus a few songs we’ve been enjoying during the making of it.
Only a couple of days now until Primavera Sound kicks off in Barcelona, Spain.
In the run-up to it, we’ve asked some of the artists we like who’re playing it put together guest playlists. The brief was to take a look over the line-up and put together a mix picking songs from other acts also on the bill.
We’ve assembled quite a library of them. Check out the selections from:
To round things off – leave the best ’til last etc. – is Kevin Morby. He’s playing at 18.00 on Thursday 1 June.
Listen to his picks below. You can also read about his choices.
Angel Olsen – Give It Up
Angel sent me a demo of this song a long time ago. I knew it was a hit from second 0:01.
Alex Cameron – Mongrel
Alex is a ghost who rattles chains in the long dark hallway of reality. A saxophone blows in the distance.
Arcade Fire – My Body Is A Cage
Have you heard this song? It’s amazing.
Solange – Don’t Touch My Hair
Sometimes when i’m listening to R&B this good I am transported back to being a kid skating around a roller rink while a disco ball turns overhead.
Mac Demarco – This Old Dog
Mac DeMarco’s new music is like a Corona with a lime in it. An instant vacation, and an instant hit with the masses.
Van Morrison – And It Stoned Me
Half a mile from the county fair and the rain came pouring down – we just stood there getting wet with our backs against the fence. Oh the water…oh…the water.
Weyes Blood – Generation Why
I’ve known Natalie now 11 years. Whats great about her is that her music is truly timeless and will live on for a long, long time.
The Magnetic Fields – The Luckiest Guy On The Lower East Side
One of the top ten best love songs of all time.
William Tyler – Highway Anxiety
Williams rules.
Kevin Morby’s new album ‘City Music’ is out on 16 June.
It started with Tom Vek‘s self-titled album being released on new year’s day, and just got better from there. You remember the self-titled debut from Clor, right? Excellent. A couple of years later, ‘Fantasy Black Channel’, Late of the Pier‘s debut would come along.
These are the type of bands Milk Disco have discovered, loved and been inspired by. Maybe that makes you feel old, too?
Anyway, not long ago the south London outfit shared their first single, ‘Welcome to the Milk Disco’ – a fiesta of The Rapture-style guitar stabs and rattling cowbell – recorded live at London’s Lightship95 Studio with Ed Ripley.
Now, they’ve made a video for it. they’ve kept things simple, but it’s effective.
On 9 June they’ll release their self-titled debut album via Partisan. Before that, the Brooklyn-based group, will make their first appearance at Primavera Sound, Barcelona.
In fact, they’re one of the bands opening a week of music. They play the Apolo venue at 2200 on Tuesday 30 May.
In the run-up to this year’s festival we’ve been asking bands to scan the line-up poster and put together a guest mix of their favourite tracks from artists also performing. Take a listen >
Now, it’s CAS’s turn to pick their top 10. Greg Gonzalez, from the band, says:
“Overwhelming beauty from the Primavera Sound line-up this year. Artists that deeply influenced me over the years like Aphex Twin, Magnetic Fields, Frank Ocean & Slayer to bands with songs that knocked me more recently like Mitski and Japandroids. Truly wonderful.”
These are his choices, and you and listen to the playlist on Apple Music or Spotify below.
Slayer – Angel of Death Saint Etienne – Like a Motorway Van Morrison – Brown Eyed Girl Aphex Twin – Flim Japandroids – The House That Heaven Built Frank Ocean – Sweet Life The Zombies – Beechwood Park Mitski – Your Best American Girl The Magnetic Fields – Strange Powers Jens Lekman – A Higher Power
Cigarettes After Sex recently shared their latest track ‘Each Time You Fall In Love’.
Alex Cameron and Roy Molloy, the greatest comedy double act since Vic and Bob. That’s just a stone cold fact. Here’s some evidence, in case you need it.
The sleaze-pop pair make touring the world on a shoestring in a rented Ford Mondeo scrapping together a few quid to buy a petrol station pasty sound like an absolute hoot. Reading their on-the-road dispatches is almost as much fun as catching them do their thing live.
Anyway, Roy has taken precious time out from polishing his saxophone to put together this comprehensive and wonderful playlist. Next week, they’ll pass through customs into Spain to play Barcelona’s Primavera Sound. They’re playing Auditori Rockdelux at 21.00 on Saturday 3 June.
Read Roy’s explanations – typed, we imagine, on a crusty iPhone somewhere in a motorway lay-by in eastern Europe – below and listen to his selections.
Mac DeMarco – Still Beating
Let’s get one thing straight: Mac’s new record is a motherfucken triumph. The guys got a tender heart and a way a giving equal footing to the good and bad in relationships and life, so as you come out believing every word he says. It’s happy and sad at once. He does it in such an artful and unpretentious way it leaves everything around you feelin’ beautiful and boyant, which I know I spelt wrong, but autocorrect wont help me, showin’ only the clumsiness a words and my own shameful lack a qualification to talk on these matters.
Kevin Morby – Come To Me Now
Kevin Morby’s got that hopeful and honest style that you gotta carry in your heart from the moment you’re born and a dick of a thickness you only develop via generations of mild inbreeding. I love his new record an I’m envious a the way he makes the words pile up or thin out in a verse as he pleases. He’s a damn motherfucker of songwriting in my opinion.
Weyes Blood – Be Free
I listened to Weyes Blood at my business partner’s insistence and found myself struck. I’m a small, petty man, in a lot a ways. Some fellers live in need of charity or mercy regarding their character and I am ashamed to be one of them, but there’s light and love surmounting these verses enough to leave my pride piled in ashes and myself feelin’ light and good like I used to.
Fatima Yamaha – What’s A Girl To Do
God damn this track bangs. If I had a dollar for each time I’d gotten a hold of the aux cord and made a party bang using this track, an acted low’key like “oh you never heard a this old number?”. So bare. So controlled. So cool. I don’t normally go in for instrumentals but when it’s perfect like this it’s hard to say no.
Angel Olsen – Not Gonna Kill You
There’s a feelin’ come over you when a songwriter sings something true of you. When they express something you didn’t know you knew about yourself and wouldn’t have the words to describe it if you did, or maybe it had to be said in song, or maybe it’s just a shade of a thought or a universal thing. Angel’s figured out the answers to stuff I wouldn’t know how to wonder in the first place. She’s possessed of an intellectual energy and songwriting brilliance and her voice is the best in the game, and she plays it all off like it’s nothing. Cool as shit.
Whitney – No Woman
These guy’s tracks are like little bags a gems. Good boys writin’ folk music with real soul. We toured with them for a while and they’ve got a tightness to their band that seemingly no amount of drugs or booze can undo, and I respect that.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – The River
We played support slot at a Sydney bowling alley for these boys back in 2014 or 2015, and I remember marvelling at this track specifically. I’d just hit a nang and for 10 minutes I was really flying. Terrifying, electric stuff. I heard their bands even grown in numbers, too.
Run The Jewels – Call Ticketron
I can’t think of another contemporary rap group that goes hard like these guys. Outrageous brag raps an the type a political rhymes that tell you the temperature without tellin’ you how to feel. The productions incredible too. I never seen ’em live and I’m insanely keen to.
Van Morrison – Dweller On The Threshold
’80s Van. Man. I heard he lives in a mansion and orders delivery pizza, and plays only a handful a shows a year. Fact is, he’s written 30 albums rammed with tracks like this – he can do whatever the fuck he wants. The high-hats and horn, the spirituality. What a belter.
Arcade Fire – Sprawl II
This one’s the type of track that with any kind a listen it’ll give ya shivers. I know not how you achieve this kind a energy in a song for if I did I’d be doing it. What a beauty. I don’t know what else to say about it.
